I'm a Libertarian living in Humboldt County, CA. I've lived here in Eureka since 1973 and joined the Libertarian Party in 1992. This blog will mostly focus on local political issues, but I may stray into state and national issues as well, when I can't help myself. Please post your comments by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of each post. Although I do moderate comments, you need not be a registered user to post them.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Media Maven Does Blogs

Marcy Burstiner, better known as the North Coast Journal's Media Maven, takes a look at blogs and blog comments in this week's column. She even mentions the Humboldt Herald and our very own Fred's Humboldt Blog.

At first I was a bit offended with her reference to this blog. She writes:

Read Humboldt Herald or Fred's Humboldt Blog on any given day and you'll find comments that appear hastily typed and posted, people saying hurtful things about other people, without the decency of signing their posts.

Hey, I guess I do allow anonymous comments and some comments might be hurtful to others, but I moderate the comments here. I might get a lot less comments than other blogs since I began moderating, but I don't allow the insulting and really nasty comments here that some others do.

But, some comments are hastily typed, posted and anonymous. Can't argue with that.

*******

First I noticed, unless I'd seen it before and forgotten about it, Marcy has her own blog. Looks like she only posts about once a month, though.

33 Comments:

This is an astute observation of how blogs have changed the face of journalism:

The idea of objectivity in the press was born with the invention of the telegraph. When we first wired the world, 19th century media moguls realized it was a waste of money for each to send reporters on the same story, when one reporter could transmit a story to every paper instantly. But to do that, they had to strip the story of any political slant.

The Internet represents the second great wiring of the world. With it, objectivity disappeared. That's because everyone now owns the equivalent of a printing press and there is no cost to distribution. Instead of one reporter for a zillion newspapers, there are a zillion commentators for every story. Every Joe is a publisher, reporter and columnist, putting back the slant in the story. But professional journalists attach their byline to every word they write, and so they take care in selecting the words they use.

She raises a good point. One that I've pondered considerably; personal accountability for what you say. Problem is, emotions and personalities get in the way. How easy would it be to try to discredit Marcy Berstiner just because she is a “Media Maven”? The media, all forms, are without any credibility today whether they sign their names or not. When I come across a blog with a lot of garbage comments, i.e. foul language for instance, I move on to another blog and never look back. That says all I need to know about the person doing the blog.

Blogs are dangerous, she says. I’m sure there were those same words used against Thomas Paine when he "blogged" for the common man and the freedom for all men to be heard.

I didn’t get this posted until Chris Crawford posted his astute observations. “Every Joe is a publisher, reporter and columnist, putting back the slant in the story.” Give me a break! “Putting back the slant in the story”? It’s a story, alright! Just take a good look at Marcy Berstiner’s “slant.” It speaks for itself. Your so-called “professional journalist” may watch their words, but they certainly don’t watch their “stories.” Because that’s all most reporting is today, “bought and paid for stories.” Name or no name, the Media is without any redeeming credibility today. At least free bloggers aren't paid to lie.

Blogs have changed the face of journalism as the reporter stated. BUT, I don't like the way she metaphorically picks up blogs with dainty fingers, staring at them with disgust before tossing time away. Blogs are much more valuable than her piece allows and I wrote a letter to the editor pointing out where I feel she errors--including your blog when disparaging the anonymous nature of the internet posts was a mistake that shows a cursory knowledge of the local bloggosphere.

Journalists aren't paid to lie. Most work very hard to try to keep their opinion out of a story, and to present both sides. That means they have to talk to both sides, which bloggers do not have to do.

The Maven's column is an opinion piece, not a news report, and she has free rein. I liked the piece, actually, though I also disagree with alot of it.

Every once in a while, Hank actually gets something right: Heraldo is a full-time blogger paid by the local Demo Central Committee power-money machine. It's their anonymity (and the brown paper bag tradition in local politics) that keeps this relationship hidden.

Yeah, as someone who has had over a decade worth of experience with internet discussion forums, I find blogs utterly horrible venues for any sort of intelligent dialog. Right off the bat, anonymity allows for "speech" that would bring blows to the person speaking them if done face to face. That sort of hijacking of dialog destroys anything meaningful coming out of blogs--sure, here and there a tidbit of real "news" will emerge but those rare incidents which as we can readily see right now with the Bonnie Neely rumor, are not to be trusted as true.

I want a Humboldt Community Forum where people are honest enough to tell us who they are as they post their thoughts without hiding like nine year old boys behind electronic bushes armed with slingshots.

Carol, "Heraldo" heralds the same sleazy secrecy that followed Richard Salzman' AEB and Local Solutions everywhere they went. Because HCDCC is virtually indistinguishable from the political agenda of Heraldo, it naturally follows that you guys if not owning "Heraldo" might know what "Heraldo" is.

Stephen, I honestly do not know who Heraldo is, but I admit, like you, I have speculated. I have corresponded with Heraldo, and have guessed, but he won't tell me. So Heraldo remains a mystery blogger just like the Humbugs and Anon-R-Mous.

As long as Heraldo hides in the shadows and pimps for every Dem candidate who gets the HCDCC blessing, the connection will continue to be made. Carol, it would be in your own best interest to expose Heraldo.

Don't think so. He/She is playing a quite little vicious game with me on his blog. He didn't like what I was posting so my posts started not appearing, then I found I could post them if I cut them up into 2 sentences apiece which triggered spam from Word Press. Now Heraldo won't let me post anything, totally censored on his blog because he/she is afraid of honest debate.

Just look at the picture of "Heraldo" and know that this person just cannot face public exposure and will lie like the photo to keep hidden and manipulative. That Eric cites Heraldo so often as a source and Hank Sims too shows their unconcern for intellectual honesty.

Birds of a feather..you and Eric and Heraldo schmooze together on Eric's blog whenever there's some dirt to fling at a Prog target. No, I'm not going to dig through Eric's posts to find exact posts of yours, hank, and I will stand corrected IF you can prove me wrong by showing how you aren't talking to Eric on his blog and sharing information you've both gotten from Heraldo. But I don't think you can do this, do you?

This is what happens, hank, when an editor of a local news source forgets his responsibility to the community for unbiased news reporting and allows himself and his rag to become more or less an in-house organ of Prog activists in Humboldt County.

Why did you refuse to report anything about the Bear River Heartlands Project, huh? Prejudice against NAs? Or Steve Lewis? If the latter, then it's even worse because that shows you cannot rise above petty rivalry and look to the good of the community.

No, it's impossible to prove a negative, which is basically the crux of your whole shtick.

But, yes, I will happily cop to blathering on the blogs with Eric and Heraldo. And you and Rose and Anon.r.mouse and Yo and brian as well. Somewhat different than "citing Heraldo as a source," but, hey, run with it.

Why did you refuse to report anything about the Bear River Heartlands Project, huh?

Steve, I'm going to tell you this once. I know you're not going to believe it, but I'm not going to argue it with you. I wish there were a kinder way to say it, and normally I'd just let you do your thing, but if you're going to be up in my face at every corner there's no avoiding it.

The Heartlands Project is bullshit. It consists entirely, I suspect, of some stuff you dreamed up while you were stoned. It has no basis in reality whatsoever. You think you have standing in court now because you're on the docket, but that means nothing. Ellen Taylor's request to have Judge Schmidt judge the "Hurwitz in Handcuffs" competition is also on the docket.

No one with any sense can take you seriously, which is why no one but you yourself does. You have no money. Your "reorganization plan" -- a very specific legal document which has to answer very specific questions -- was nothing of the kind.

This is why it died before it was born -- not because there's some massive to conspiracy to keep you down, but because you don't bother to check if your ideas make any sense in the first place.

You'd be a fun person to have around, Steve, if you weren't so tightly wound. For myself, I'm personally and professionally disposed to be fond of dreamers. Plus I like your taste in movies. The problem is when you let this stuff curdle inside you. It gets pretty foul. Can't you relax a bit?

I miss being able to be sweet Stephen again like most of my friends know me as. This political warrior life I feel I have to lead in public these days isn't very satisfying to my artist, spiritual self.

Well, Hank, if Heartlands was "bullshit", some pot smoking headtrip as you again smear me by smearing my project, (lay off, dude, and I won't have reason to be Mean Steve), then why did Digital Corporation before being bought out by Compaq, then H-P, tell us, three people witnessing this, that "if set up right" our Heartlands Native American Lottery financing system "could make up to a billion dollars a year."

Why did GTECH, California's and Mega-Lotto's and several other state lottery management company, was interested in becoming our lottery management company before they signed on to do California's lottery? Why GTECH's European equivalent, United Lottery and Totalizer Company want to keep in touch to see if Bear River was going to authorize our lottery project or not--because they too saw the tremendous financial power in a Native American run state, or national or international lottery to regain ancestral lands and sacred sites as it's good cause.

The whole reason Heartlands spun and spun around Bear River was because of Bear River's tribal politics which are not rationally based but based on old family rivalries. Wayne Moon happens to be not in the ruling Bear River family and that has made all the difference because I am associated with Wayne and he's a rival of Leonard Bowman for tribal leader. One woman, Leonard's aunt rules Bear River and she doesn't like the lottery project because her nephew's rival Wayne Moon brought to the tribe. One person in a tribe is capable of stopping all the rest of Bear River tribal members from ever getting a huge chunk of their ancestral lands back, 70,000 acres of PL lands--1/3rd with partnership with Palco employees who will own the other 2/3rds with the lottery funding their ESOP buy out of Palco.

Hank, there's been all kinds of news about this project and Bear River tribal politics--ask Heather Mueller who was trying to investigate Bowman and Bear River when she worked for the E.R.

It really is a huge shame that you have let your prejudices about me stop the NCJ from reporting something important to the community. And you're still doing it and trying to blame me for your lack of professional journalistic integrity.

Report our Palco Community Corporation attempt to get into the Palco Bankruptcy. There are three of us now, former Palco workers who are trying to reorganize a Palco workers buy-out. Don't close off our ability to reach the community because of political bias. Do these things, and I won't be on your case.

You are so completely full of crap Hank, no wonder you work at the Journal. Fond of dreamers? Is that why you demonstrate unending cruelty towards every spark of independent media which arises to challenge your yuppiecrat spin?

Carol said... "Stephen, I honestly do not know who Heraldo is, but I admit, like you, I have speculated. I have corresponded with Heraldo, and have guessed, but he won't tell me. So Heraldo remains a mystery blogger just like the Humbugs and Anon-R-Mous."

Carol, Heraldo isn't what you think he is. In the days to come, Heraldo will be all around in the dark. He'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, he'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, he'll be there. He'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - He'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - Heraldo will be there, too."

I get so sick and tired of newspaper editors acting like self-appointed censors of community news when they don't like the person delivering the news.

KMUD interviewed Don Brenard and me about Heartlands a couple of months ago now and did any KMUD listener ever hear a word on KMUD News? No. And why is that? Could it be possibly due to the fact that KMUD's news interviewer happened to be the former head of EPIC whom I've criticized many a time? She too sits on community news and decides which news to report and Do n and I saw didn't report Heartlands at all--buried our news like Hank's done.

The Indie too won't report Heartlands news and I cannot get any letters published in that rag-again for political bias as the Independent caters to Progressives and ignores mainstream news.

Such bias we have in our local news. Reminds me when I watched Channel 6 at the station pull their reporter's news about Paul Gallegos when they and others saw The Other Woman at the hospital with Paul.

Well sigh away our equal rights to be heard in our community with editors and their agendas at the helm of what the community gets to know about and what they don't.

Must be exhausting making those tough calls for all the rest of us, Hank. How long have you and the NCJ refused to report the Heartlands project? Several years now. You know, maybe if the community had known about the Heartlands Project maybe when the same Bear River leaders were re-elected in March and again shot down their own tribal member's Heartland's project, well maybe, Hank, someone could have stepped in by now to help us as we lost our funding a month ago.

Oh, but I forgot, you deemed in your wisdom that the Heartlands Project was just Steve's fantasy and even though Bear River Tribal Council under Wayne Moon as acting Chair sponsored Don Brenard's and my Heartland's Project because it was for the whole Tribe on one hand and all Palco workers on the other.

But Hank, with your degrees in economics, bankruptcy proceedings, foreign trade, tribal politics and general wisdom of editorial office deemed all the Bear River tribal members who supported Heartlands for three years we are to understand just following pipe dreams about recovering thousands of acres of ancestral land. Good of you to tell Native Americans how to think straight about ever recovering their ancestral for crying out loud! It's us white people's land and that's that.

So, Hank, you get Mean Steve because you don't deserve Sweet Stephen when you back hand me me more stupid slander of me and my tribal co-workers and Palco workers when you don't know a thing about what you're talking about.

Forinstance. You don't seem to realize when you let Judge Richard Schmidt dictate who and who isn't represented in Texas, you become his court's pawn against your own community. Palco Community Corporation represents the LOCAL COMMUNITY. We're working to bring ownership of Palco back into local community hands.

I censor slander on my blog but will argue a point with anyone who comes to my blog openly and honestly for debate, meaning they don't resort to character assassination in order to defeat an opponent's argument-they take on the arguments of the issue itself.